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DECEMBER 2, 2003
By Alex Salkever A Key Weapon to Thwart Cybercrime [Page 2 of 2] E-MAIL ALERTS. The upshot? While the FBI's Operation Cyber Sweep is necessary and should continue, it's only the first step -- knocking down the low-hanging fruit -- on a long path to better Internet data security. Another key step would be starting to build strong coalitions with law-enforcement agencies in the countries where these frauds will most likely take place. A series of high-profile busts overseas would carry more weight than anything that was done just stateside. Equally key is to give consumers the tools they need to detect anything fishy in their accounts. Some financial institutions already offer capabilities such as e-mail notification of any suspicious credit-card activity. That's good and should be expanded. Two of the three credit-reporting agencies offer an annual paid service that sends customers an e-mail anytime their credit history changes or is accessed. But the agencies claim they can't force any banks or other financial institutions to call individuals whose records have been pulled even if they have a fraud-alert warning on their credit file. And the cost of paying for both services separately is over $100 annually. The third credit-reporting agency continues to keep consumers in the dark when it comes to e-mail notification. FAIR FIGHT. California has taken the more radical but equally welcome step of mandating that companies and organizations that get hacked notify potential victims as quickly as possible. That's unlikely to become a federal law anytime soon, and that's too bad. The public is the best defense against online fraud. Yes, keep busting the bad guys both here and abroad. But the government really needs to give people what they need to fight this scourge: more information. A good start would be a unified system that would notify consumers whenever their credit file has been accessed at any of the big credit-reporting agencies. That could be run by the government or by a third-party nonprofit created for the task. The notifications could travel via e-mail or snail mail, depending on personal preferences. While banks and credit-card companies have gone a long way toward correcting past problems with notifying and protecting customers, a California-style law with teeth is necessary on a national level. That would mean banks and other financial institutions would face the very real risk of civil penalties if they don't notify affected customers in a timely fashion. AVERTING CATASTROPHE. At the very least, everyone should have the right to know that they may be at risk for the rest of their lives. This is particularly important as more fraudsters are now staggering their use of purloined information over months and even years to attract too much attention. These steps won't address all Internet crime sectors. "Phishing," where online scam artists dupe people via clever e-mail into coughing up account and personal information can't be directly stopped by either measure. What they will do, however, is prevent an inconvenient breach from turning into a major catastrophe for Web surfers and the companies that sell to them. With the right information in hand, consumers can look after their own best interests and serve as a far more potent mechanism than Operation Cyber Sweep to keep online fraud in check.
 Salkever is Technology editor for BusinessWeek Online. Follow his Nothing But Net column every week on BusinessWeek Online
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